


At the Top of My Lungs

by stardropdream



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 06:58:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5902960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Porthos, he realizes with a shock, is angry with him. Once he realizes it, he can't stop thinking about it. (post season 2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Top of My Lungs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jlarinda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlarinda/gifts).



> A request from months ago from JL that asked for Porthos actually being angry with Aramis after everything that happened after 2x10. So, ta da.   
> Working my way through a writer's block, so apologies if some of this is a little choppy. But I had a free moment to actually write something and I wanted to take it. Can never have too much portamis and have to fill the void of no season 3 so far somehow u_u

“Porthos,” Aramis greets, as warm and friendly as he can manage despite the nervousness pressing against the back of his throat. He tries to swallow it down, but it just doesn’t settle. 

Porthos pauses, turns, looks at him – and while he smiles, there’s a hesitant strain to it for a moment, involuntary. Aramis can only see it because he’s looking for it, because he’s known Porthos for so many years. Porthos has always been painfully easy to read – especially for him.

“Hey,” Porthos says. “What is it?” 

Aramis falters for a moment, hesitates. He couldn’t place it at first, the strange niggling at the base of his stomach that told him something was wrong. He’s felt it for days, weeks now. He hadn’t known what it meant, at first. Now—

“I – if you were heading back, I thought we could walk together,” Aramis offers, and it feels strange to _offer_ it – to have to _offer_ what was once unspoken between them. To have to offer what was once natural between them: go everywhere together, walk everywhere together. Be everywhere together. It’d been natural. It’d been simple. He’d ever even had to question it—

Well, perhaps he’d taken it for granted, at the time. 

Porthos hesitates. Aramis sees him do so. Porthos never was good at hiding his feelings. Much less from Aramis himself. He always could—

“… Is – is that alright?” he asks, quiet. He hates that he is hesitant where once there had only been confidence. Once, he’d never had to doubt this. At least in Porthos, there was one thing in his life he never had to doubt – even if he spent countless nights wondering at Porthos’ extensive and devastating loyalty. Perhaps he should not be surprised that he’s ruined it beyond repair now. 

He’d perhaps foolishly thought that things would go back the way they’d been before. It’s been a few years – not too long, not too long he keeps telling himself. Years since his brothers came to get him from the monastery, years since they went to the front lines, years since – petrified of going back on his vow – Aramis selected a different regiment, a different battlefront against Spain. Something more withdrawn, something more insular – something that wasn’t quite so center-stage to killing the Spanish soldiers foolish enough to battle too close to where Porthos and the others stood, a hurricane. No, Aramis had withdrawn. A marksman’s eye, a man of God – far away from the blood and the killing. 

Away from his brothers. 

He moved from them. Didn’t see them every day. Didn’t see them at all. Years passed and when the war was over, when Athos found him – brow-beaten but still strong, shaken enough to feel that returning to the monastery might not be the correct thing to do—

The way they’d reacted, seeing him returned, seeing him renew his commission – he’d watched them all look at him as if he were coming back from the dead, as if they’d never forgotten him but knew they’d never see him again. Porthos had been worst of all – Porthos had looked heartbroken, even when Aramis was walking towards him. But then, it isn’t as if Aramis doesn’t know the way Porthos looks at retreating backs – the way he fears, always, the sight of loss. Unlike Aramis, though, he has learned to compartmentalize this fear. 

Aramis tells himself it hasn’t been too long – only a few years. Not too long. Not impossibly long. 

He doesn’t want to think it – doesn’t want to fear that the curve of Porthos’ smile, strained and unsteady, is the result of battles and moments from which Aramis was absent. Or, worse, that the strain to his smile is merely that Porthos is trying to remember what it felt like to love him. What it felt like to care about him, to see him as a friend and brother. 

If he no longer cares for him, Aramis thinks, then he deserves that. 

He almost takes back the offer – says that they’re likely going in opposite directions today (a bitter metaphor he doesn’t dare swallow, bitter still knowing that they would both be going back towards the garrison at this hour), but then Porthos just nods – and his smile takes on something a little lighter, easier along the edges when he looks at Aramis. 

He turns. He walks. He expects Aramis to follow and so he does, trailing behind him a few steps before speeding his pace so that they’re walking side-by-side. This almost feels natural. This almost feels like enough. 

Perhaps it would be better, to leave well enough alone. Perhaps it would be better to leave this as it is.

He walks with him in silence.

 

-

 

Weeks pass. The first few visits to the palace are devastating in the simplicity of it. No. No matter how many years pass, no matter who he loses – Aramis can never be used to the jag, panging slice against his heart. It presses up against his chest, into the curve of his throat. He is powerless. He can show no reaction to it – to any of it. 

After the first few visits, the ache does not subside but it is at least enough that Aramis can breathe. Can bow, can move. It is at least enough for that—

Porthos walks beside him as they leave through the front gardens. Athos is ahead of them, signaling for the horses – d’Artagnan has stayed behind to speak with Constance. 

Aramis swallows down at words that just won’t come, words he can’t quite stomach to say. He hazards a small, tentative, painful little glance at Porthos. 

Porthos is already watching him, expression calm. Aramis blinks once, looks down – away – and then back towards Porthos. 

Porthos doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

 

-

 

Evening is falling a few days later when Aramis returns to the garrison. Porthos is dressing down his horse, throwing the saddle off its back and onto his shoulder as if it is an easy task. Aramis pauses, lost in thought but jarred from it as he watches him. The sun is sinking down low on the horizon and the sky is wreathed with clouds – and there is Porthos. 

He looks up, meets Aramis’ eyes – and attempts to smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, though, and he looks away soon enough. Aramis stares at the spot above Porthos’ shoulder, frozen in place for one long, cruel moment. How easily these things splinter apart: how easily he feels untethered. 

“You need something?” Porthos asks, and it is not cruelty that makes him speak it – but Aramis almost flinches all the same. How easily Porthos once asked him that – and now there is tension to his shoulders, a tight grip on the saddle as he carries it to its resting place. Once, he’d asked these things easily – now he treads lightly, as if uncertain it’s his place now to ask.

Aramis steps forward, reaches out, touches at the small of Porthos’ back before he can second-guess it. Porthos does not flinch away, but he does not lean into the touch, either. He breathes out a breath and Aramis ghosts his hand against his spine, skims his fingertips before withdrawing. He hesitates, says nothing. 

Porthos sets the saddle down and turns towards him – and up close like this, Aramis can see the beginnings of lines over his face. The first sure signs of age. They are growing older, ever older. Porthos’ eyes are soft in the fading light. 

“I need…” Aramis begins, stops, bites at the inside of his cheek in thought. Porthos does not interrupt – only waits. Aramis breathes out. “I need to speak with you.” 

That much, at least, is true. But his tongue stays as soon as the words leave him: speak of what? The questions settle in the pit of his stomach but he has no voice to give them, no way of knowing what would be best to ask first, how to form those questions at all. 

“What is it?” Porthos asks, his voice pitching down low – hesitant but unwilling to admit it so. 

This early in the year, the sun sunk low behind the edge of the Paris buildings, their breath mists out. Aramis almost shivers. The ground beneath his feet is growing hard, softened mud thickening against the chill in the air. 

It’ll be the dauphin’s birthday soon, he thinks. Can’t banish the thought. He breathes out harshly, a flagging cloud of fog erupting from his throat. 

The thought must show on his face. Porthos reaches out, touches his elbow. Cups his arm. Keeps him still. The thoughts coil up against his heart, around his throat. Porthos smiles, a sympathetic thing – wilted. 

One day, one day if he’s lucky—

When has he ever been lucky? 

“Come on,” Porthos says, grasping him firmly around the elbow and leading him away. Aramis marches without protest, follows in Porthos’ shadow as he makes his way towards the barracks, stamps his feet on the threshold before tugging Aramis into his room. 

It is the way Aramis remembers it – untouched after so many years. Dust and dirt and grit on the floor, but overwhelming Porthos’. A few worn, well-loved books near a row of boots. The old pauldron reshaped into a gauntlet resting on his table. The thrown-back blankets, threadbare and warm and inevitably smelling of him, crumpled at the foot of Porthos’ bed. 

The sudden wave of nostalgia that hits Aramis, that sudden wave of belonging and longing – hits him so suddenly that he almost can’t breathe with it. He stands in place, somewhat awkward, as Porthos goes about the room, fidgeting with his hands in a way that wouldn’t be obvious if it were anyone else but Aramis observing it. 

Porthos says nothing, but is clearly waiting. 

Aramis breathes out. 

“You’re angry with me.”

Once he says it, it feels obvious. And it sits as a lead weight in his stomach. Saying it is not freeing, is not liberating – it is suffocating. Angry. Porthos is angry with him. There is no joy in the feeling. No sense of relief at finally uncovering what has laid unspoken between them for _years_. 

Porthos breathes out steadily, closes his eyes – tips his chin back in the way that means he’s ready to fight, ready to hold his floor. His eyebrows slant, frustrated – and he lets out a long, steady breath that only fills Aramis with a dread.

This is it. This is the confirmation: he has driven Porthos away too much. He has lost him forever. He never deserved to hold him at all, anyway. 

“It’s fine,” Porthos offers, cautious, weighted – not dismissing, but offering that extraction, offering Aramis that chance to run. Perhaps he is tired of moving away from Porthos. His feet, though, are too rooted to the floor. He cannot step closer. 

“It’s not,” he insists, breathes out through his teeth. “Porthos—”

“It’s fine,” Porthos says, quieter still. His back has gone rigid. 

Aramis sucks in a sharp breath, lets it seep out of him. “Porthos… please.” 

Porthos turns his head away, looks down at his hands. He breathes in steadily – strangely steady, and all Aramis can think is that this is the moment, the moment where his world crashes down and away. The moment he’s truly lost everything. He could stomach so much, has stomached too much – but this, this loss—

“Porthos,” he says again, takes a tentative step towards him. His world is shuttering apart. Crumbling, splintering beneath him. He can barely breathe around the pounding of his heart, the slick of his palms. It is too much. 

Still Porthos refuses to look at him, refuses to say anything. He closes his eyes as Aramis approaches, tips his chin again. Breathes out through his nose. 

This close, Aramis can see he’s shaking, too.

“Please,” Aramis says, as a man facing down the gallows – knowing that he has lost everything but needing to hear the confirmation, needing to see the moment Porthos’ fist closes and crushes his heart against his palm. “Porthos, you’re angry with me. Right?” 

Porthos hisses out his breath – slumps. 

“Yes,” Porthos admits, his shoulders tensed even as he slumps. “Yes, alright? I’m angry.” 

Aramis goes very quiet and very still, staring at him with wide eyes – and his heart stutters to a halt in his chest. Even if he’s demanded this confirmation – hearing it is too much. He lurches forward, as if to take a step, and then stops, curls into himself. The confirmation is not gratifying – it is as horrifying, as stilling, as he’d feared. So many years – and this is the truth of it: he has lost Porthos forever. 

“Oh,” he says, very quietly. “Of course you are – it’s… of course you would be.” 

Years spent away from one another. Months before that hiding the truth from him. Even if it was for his protection, even if it was for his own good—

Porthos, loyal to a fault, could never forgive him this. Why should he? Aramis has never been worth forgiving. He has never—

Porthos heaves a breath and sits down heavily, shaking his head. He scrubs his hands over his face, shaking his head a second time. His nails dig into his cheeks for a moment, scratch at his beard. It is a delicate moment, purely Porthos and utterly vulnerable. In another life, years ago, Aramis would have gone to him, collected him into his arms, kissed the top of his head. In another life, they wouldn’t have been in this situation at all. 

Porthos says, “No.” He swallows down, says with his voice thick, “No, you don’t get it.” 

“You’re angry with me,” Aramis says, weakly, “Why wouldn’t you be? After everything…”

Porthos looks up at him and the words die in Aramis’ throat. 

Porthos studies him for a moment, and it’s a wonder that he can sound so calm – still so steady, after all these years. A lantern at the end of a wharf, a calming presence in the eye of a storm. Porthos has always been so, for Aramis. 

He says, “I was upset. When you left.”

“I know,” Aramis says, quiet. 

Porthos nods. He keeps looking at him – now doesn’t seem ready to look away. He holds Aramis’ eyes and Aramis is pinned there, unable to move. 

“I was so damn sad, Aramis.” It isn’t accusation, nor resignation – but Aramis flinches all the same. Porthos’ eyes gentle for a moment, sympathetic – apologetic to be the source of the response, however involuntary. He breathes out, his shoulders rounding out. He continues, “It was horrible and I missed you – and I thought I’d get you back and I didn’t.” 

“I know,” Aramis says, weakly. He remembers that day. Walking out from the monastery and into the sun, seeing his three brothers there and a fourth horse for him. The moment he’d met Porthos’ eyes – seem that tentative, hopeful smile – and known that he would hurt him yet again, that he would have to betray him for his own protection. For the sake of his vow. 

“I never wanted you to leave in the first place,” Porthos says, looks down at his feet, clenches his hands together. Aramis breathes out, shoulders shaking – bites back the protest, the _of course I had to leave_ , the _you’re better off without me now_ —

He looks down. 

Porthos sighs out. “Every goddamn time, Aramis. You don’t deserve that.” 

Aramis looks up, surprised. He frowns. “I—”

“You don’t deserve to have life do this to you. And I couldn’t help you.”

“Porthos,” Aramis starts, startled, “No—”

“I hated you being at risk the way you were,” Porthos says, and suddenly the image of Porthos withdrawn, angry – suddenly it is too heartbreaking. Anger breeding not from Aramis’ own faults, but a protectiveness for Aramis. He—

He should have known that’d be the case.

Porthos keeps speaking, as if Aramis is not crumpling apart in front of him. “I hated that I couldn’t do more for you or tell you to stay or _anything._ I didn’t have the right to ask you that.”

Aramis thinks of too many times, the fear of Porthos’ retreating back – of telling him to stay, either in words or actions. He swallows down. His voice is thick when he says, “You have every right.”

Porthos shakes his head. “I know you wouldn’t have, if I’d asked.” 

Aramis doesn’t answer. Finds he can’t answer. 

“I know why you went,” Porthos says. “I’m not saying I don’t. I do get it.”

Aramis feels the panic drain out of him. He takes a step. Moves closer. Sits down beside Porthos, tentatively.

Porthos turns slightly towards him, looks at him until Aramis has to look down. Palms at his knees, grips tight, fists his hands in his coat. 

Porthos is quiet beside him for a moment. Then he says, “I’m angry because – I hated losing you.” 

Aramis swallows down. Reaches out and covers Porthos’ hands. He expects Porthos to withdraw, but he only breathes out. So Aramis curls their fingers together. 

“I understand,” Aramis says, quietly. “I didn’t… I didn’t love leaving. I had my vow. You know that. I was – ” His breath hitches and he blinks rapidly for a moment before continuing, “I was trying to keep everyone safe. I couldn’t tell you… you know why I couldn’t tell you. I had to protect you. You know why I did. And – and despite all that… why—”

Why would Porthos ever want to choose him when he could be safe? Even if it meant not having him with him. How could that even be a choice? How could there ever be a choice like this to be made: who could choose Aramis over safety, over stability, over freedom from his own foolish ways? 

Porthos looks at him for a moment. Aramis flounders, swallows down, and looks back up at him.

“I should have been able to help you more,” Porthos says.

“You did,” Aramis protests. 

Porthos shakes his head. “Not enough. If I had – you’d have stayed.” 

Aramis breathes out a shuddering gasp, closes his eyes. “Don’t.”

Porthos withdraws – and Aramis’ heart jumps into his throat. But Porthos moves slowly – doesn’t move away, doesn’t withdraw. He only steps to the window. 

Saccharine in so many moments like these, Aramis often thinks that moonlight suits Porthos’ skin. Firelight, starlight, sunlight – anything suits Porthos. Silver in his hair now as he walks to the shutters of his window and closes them. Little lines of light push through the slotted wood, and it’s against the curve of his ear, his fingertips. 

It doesn’t matter how ridiculous Aramis feels in the moment, thinking it: how beautiful and radiant he is. He knows how often he’d thought of Porthos, over the last few years. Despite his vow, despite his distance – he’d thought of Porthos often. He doesn’t dare ask Porthos if he thought of him at all, in turn. 

Now, though, nothing else compares – Aramis spent years conjuring up the sound of Porthos’ voice, the way he looked in the night – naked and flushed and sprawled out on his bed with Aramis over top of him. So long ago now it feels. The room is dusty and cold and the sound of Porthos’ voice pales in comparison to everything else. 

He is far more beautiful in this moment, too, because now Aramis could reach for him and find him – far better than reaching out to nothing in the cold dark warfront. 

He finds himself standing, moving towards him, before he can second guess it. He moves into Porthos’ space. 

Up close, Porthos is infinitely sad – he can see it in his eyes. Anger, yes. But not at Aramis. Never at Aramis. Frustration, anger – loneliness. 

Despite it all, Aramis is the cause. 

Despite it all, Aramis did leave him. Even if Porthos might understand, even if he might hate the situation and never Aramis – that is something Aramis knows he must atone for. Knows he must spend the rest of his life making it up to Porthos. 

He’s close to Porthos now. Porthos turns to look at him. 

“Tell me now,” Aramis whispers out, desperate – reaches out and touches Porthos’ face, cups his cheek.

Porthos breathes out steadily, eyes clenched shut. Aramis fans his thumb out, touches at the line of his scar over his cheek. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Porthos says in a quiet voice, infinitely uncertain and longing. Aramis’ heart thuds out and flops down into his gut. 

“Tell me to stay,” Aramis whispers, hands shaking, terrified of the mere thought that one word from Porthos could have turned him away forever from his vow all those years ago. Unsure which is worse: that he might have turned for Porthos’ sake, or that he might have ignored a direct request from the man he loves. 

Porthos breathes out, shivers, and he’s shaking beneath Aramis’ hold. He wants to step closer, wants to anchor him – and realizes he can. One arm curls around the back of Porthos’ neck, holds steady to him.

“Porthos,” Aramis whispers, leaning up close – breathes out, feels the slide of Porthos’ breath against the lines of his teeth, the curve of his jaw. 

“Stay,” Porthos murmurs, as if it is a full weight of exhaustion that summons the request – the plea – from him. Porthos so rarely asks him for anything. Porthos so rarely demands. Porthos so rarely lets himself be selfish in this way. 

“Oh,” Aramis whispers – because even if he’d drawn the word from him, hearing it is enough to arrest him. His hands are shaking as they touch at Porthos’ cheeks. He leans forward – presses his forehead to his, breathes out shakily. Cradles his cheeks. No space for breath between them. “Oh, my love,” he whispers. “I’m here.” 

Porthos breathes out a startling crisp of a laugh. His hands, tentative but gentle, cup at his waist. Hold him. Aramis almost shivers – feels himself breathe properly for perhaps the first time in years. 

“Stay,” Porthos says again, quieter – as if disbelieving, as if needing to saturate his skin in the sounds of the word. 

Aramis nods. Breathes out. “I’m here.” 

“Aramis,” Porthos says – and the sound of his name is far better than anything else. Aramis does shiver this time, visibly. Porthos offers him a tentative smile. “I love you, you know.” 

Aramis sucks in a deep breath, feels his face flush – and nods his head. Quietly, he says, “I know… Oh, Porthos.” 

Porthos nods. “I know. You don’t have to say it.” 

Aramis closes his eyes, leans in close, presses his face into Porthos’ shoulder. He clings, flounders more, unsure if he has the right to say the words back – and then hates the silence that follows. “I love you. Of course I do.” 

It might be embarrassing, how urgently close he pulls Porthos against his chest, if Porthos’ hands weren’t every bit as tight on the Aramis’ shoulders. The first kiss is fast and firm, relief and reassurance. 

Porthos draws back, looks overwhelmed with simply that. Aramis touches his face again. He feels breathless – like he is young again, a blooming first love in the pit of his stomach. This time, this time – let it be enough. This time—

He steps immediately back to Porthos and Porthos lets out a small laugh, lets Aramis curl his fingers into his hair and guide him down into another kiss. They linger close, pressed to each other – and it is too much like earnestness, a low heat of promise between them. A declaration. 

Porthos arms close around him – and he is home again.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [my tumblr](http://stardropdream.tumblr.com/), as always.


End file.
